Usually, as buildings become higher, the space occupied by elevators becomes greater, and the usable space in the building becomes smaller. For example, in Landmark Tower in Yokohama, Japan, about ⅓ the total space is occupied by elevators.
As a means for improving the efficiency of elevators in ultrahigh buildings, the sky lobby system has been proposed. In this system, a sky lobby is provided as a transit lobby on a floor at nearly the midpoint of the total height of the building. A shuttle elevator is provided that is dedicated (goes directly) to the sky lobby, and the main line (local elevators) is divided into upper and lower portions so as to achieve economic design (with space and energy reduction). (The name “sky lobby” comes from the fact that it is located in the sky as viewed from the lobby near the ground).
The sky lobby system has been adopted in the Petronas Towers in Malaysia, the Jingmao Building and Bank of China Buildings in China, Central Plaza in Hong Kong, the T&C Tower in Taiwan, as well as the Yamao Park Tower and the Roppongi 1-Chome Plan Building in Japan.
This system has been found to have significant advantages for buildings 200 m high or higher. On the other hand, when the building is super high (400 m or higher), more than one sky lobby may be provided as an economic design.
However, when several sky lobbies are provided (for example, when a sky lobby is provided for every 150 m in a building 750 m high), when conventional elevator operation is used, the time for the shuttle elevator to complete a trip becomes much longer, and the service level becomes much poorer. As a result, many more elevators are needed.
This is because, for large cars (with a rating of 40–68 passengers), the time for passengers to get on and off the car becomes longer, so that the time to complete each trip becomes longer for each elevator, the average time between starts becomes longer, and the transporting ability is reduced.
In the following, the operation method for a conventional elevator system will be explained with reference to FIGS. 6–13. FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating a conventional group management system. In this system, all of elevators A–D stop at all of the floors. Consequently, the passenger riding on the elevator can reach any desired target floor. Also, due to group management, there is little likelihood that the passenger will wait a long time. In FIG. 6, the circles indicate the floors to which the elevator provides service (same in following FIGS. 7–10).
On the other hand, because passengers going to lower floors and passengers going to higher floors share the same elevator, the time it takes for passengers to reach higher floors becomes longer, especially during the rush hour, and a longer time is needed for the elevator to return to the lobby (the ground floor building lobby). As a result, more passengers have to wait, and the lobby becomes crowded. This is undesirable.
FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating the rush hour division service system. As indicated by hatched zones in the figure, the service floors for each elevator are limited during the rush hour. For example, the service floors for units A and B are limited to the 2nd–6th floors, and the service floors for units C and D are limited to the 7th–11th floors.
In this system, passengers going to the same target floor go together, so that the riding time can be shortened, and the car can return to the lobby more quickly, so that the lobby is not so crowded. This is an advantage. On the other hand, however, when there are many passengers in a certain group, the lobby becomes crowded, while the elevators for other groups are idled. This is undesirable. In addition, the number of elevators that can be selected by each passenger is halved, so that the wait time becomes longer. This is also undesirable.
FIGS. 8–10 illustrate the so-called channeling system for further improving the rush hour division service shown in FIG. 7. First of all, as shown in FIG. 8, the service floors are limited to a few floors (floors are divided to sectors), and elevators are assigned to respective sectors.
In this case, one elevator unit is not assigned to any sector (unit D in FIG. 8), and the elevators assigned to the sectors represent the various service floors (floors indicated by hatched areas).
FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating the situation in which passengers have entered elevator unit A for departure. Simultaneously with said departure, the service floor display for unit A is erased, and the sector of the departing elevator (that is, sector 3) is assigned to the elevator that had no service floors displayed (that is, unit D). As a result, the service floor display of elevator unit D becomes “9th–11th floors.”
When the elevators depart one by one, the elevator that returns first is assigned to an empty sector. As shown in FIG. 10, unit C has departed, so that the display of “6th–8th floors,” as shown in FIG. 9, is erased. Instead, “6th–8th floors” is displayed as the service floors for unit A that had no display in the situation shown in FIG. 9. As shown in FIG. 10, for unit A it is displayed that service for the 9th floor and 10th floor, assigned as shown in FIG. 9, is terminated, and the elevator is now on the 10th floor; for unit B it is displayed that service for the 3rd floor, 4th floor and 5th floor, assigned as shown in FIG. 9, is terminated, and the elevator is now on the 5th floor. On the other hand, for unit D it is displayed that the elevator is now on the lobby floor.
For the aforementioned rush hour division service shown in FIG. 7, because the elevators for sectors are fixed, one has to wait until an elevator returns once it has departed. On the other hand, for the channeling system shown in FIGS. 8–10, because an empty section is assigned to the first elevator that returns, there is no need to wait for an elevator for a long time. As a result, it is possible to prevent crowding in the lobby, and it is possible to reduce the service time as the wait time becomes shorter.
However, because the number of sectors and the number of floors are fixed in the channeling (static channeling) shown in FIGS. 8–10, if a large number of passengers wants to travel to a certain floor at the same time, the riding time for the sector containing said floor becomes longer, and the overall service level for the entire sector may degrade.
In order to solve this problem, the so-called dynamic channeling system shown in FIGS. 11–13 is adopted. In this system, the total number of passengers is counted, and changes are made to the number of sectors and numbers of floors so as to have uniform distribution of passengers among the various sectors.
For example, in a situation with the settings shown in FIG. 11, the number of sectors is 3; the number of floors in the sector for unit A is 3; the number of floors in the sector for unit B is 4; and the number of floors in the sector for unit C is 3. When passengers are concentrated on a certain floor, as shown in FIG. 12, changes can be made to the settings to reduce the number of floors for the sector containing said floor that is the destination for many passengers. That is, the number of floors in the sector for unit A is changed to 2; the number of floors in the sector for unit B is changed to 7; and the number of floors in the sector for unit C is changed to 1.
On the other hand, when the distribution of the passengers is even, as shown in FIG. 13, the number of sectors is 2, the number of floors in the sector for unit A is 5, and the number of floors in the sector for unit B is 5.
In this way, as the distribution in the number of passengers for various floors changes, the sectors are adjusted to cope with variations in the passenger flow over time. Consequently, the cycle time for the elevators becomes shorter, and service to the sectors can be improved.
In this case, there are various criteria, as listed below, used for evaluation of elevators (JIS) (reference: “Kenchiku sekkei•shiko no tame no shinkoki keikaku shishin” [Guidelines for elevator plans in the design and construction of buildings], published 1992 by Japan Elevator Association).
(1) Round trip time.
The time from return of the car to the start floor to return again of the car to the start floor after having carried passengers from the start floor to upper floors.
(2) Average round trip time.
Average round trip time=travel time+door open/close time+time for passengers getting on and off+loss time (sec).
(2-1) The travel distance and the number of travel segments (accelerations/decelerations) are included in the travel time.
(2-2) The predicted number of stops is included in the door opening/closing time, time for passengers getting on and off and loss time.
(3) Average departure interval round trip time/number of units (sec).
(4) 5-min transporting ability 300/average departure interval×number of passengers riding (number of persons).
However, in the conventional operation method, there are multiple floors served by any given elevator among the multiple elevator units. Consequently, the round trip time from departure to return to the starting floor after serving multiple floors is long.
For example, even when the number of floors served is changed, as with the dynamic channeling system shown in FIG. 12, multiple floors are assigned to any given elevator as service floors. Consequently, the round trip time becomes longer.
This problem becomes more significant when the building becomes higher and the number of floors is increased. For example, in a skyscraper with a shuttle elevator, because the original shuttle elevator serves for express travel to the sky lobby, said items (2-1), (2-2) are counted only twice, and high efficiency can be realized in the operation.
However, when more than one sky lobby is provided, just as with a conventional elevator, sequential stop service is provided, and, finally, the criteria pertaining to the predicted number of stops (running cycle number[sic], door opening/closing time, time for passengers getting on and off, loss time) are added to the round trip time, so that the round trip time becomes much longer.
For a conventional elevator in actual operation, when a passenger near the inside wall wants to exit the car, passengers standing near the door have to get off and then back on the car again. Taking this scenario into consideration for said sky lobbies in a skyscraper, the loss time is expected to become longer.
For the shuttle elevator in the sky lobby scheme, although an elevator system is adopted, it is actually like an express bus system, that is, a new traffic system.
The purpose of this invention is to solve the aforementioned problems of the prior art by providing a type of elevator operation system and elevator operation method characterized by the fact that it can shorten the round trip time of elevator, optimize the general elevator operation characteristics and application characteristics of a shuttle elevator, and improve the service level.